What are the main differences between a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist?

[Dian Cecht]

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Hello, Aside from the ability to prescribe medication what are the day to day differences between the two in both a clinical setting I.e outpatient or hospital and also private practice? Thank you

 

[JustAGuy]

This has been discussed so many times here. It would probably be best to do a search. This should get you started:

How do you explain the difference between a Psychiatrist/Psychologist?

 

[Twomonty17]

The salt of SDN could be captured in those first few posts to the op. Just plain frustration and passive aggression. That's the post we all link back to? The guy was asking a simple question and they have questions back at him asking for his purpose, credentials and if he's trolling.

 

[hamstergang]

The salt of SDN could be captured in those first few posts to the op. Just plain frustration and passive aggression. That's the post we all link back to? The guy was asking a simple question and they have questions back at him asking for his purpose, credentials and if he's trolling.

Yeah that seemed pretty bad to me, but the thread does eventually get more in depth to a real answer.

 

[Dian Cecht]

I did not mean to offend, I guess I'm curious how different the typical day to day is for either.

Sent from my LG-H873 using SDN mobile

 

[WisNeuro]

Like splik hinted at, no real typical day. For example, even within several of the psychologists that I work with in my hospital, we all have vastly different days. I'm a neuropsychologist, one is an addictions specialist, another is a health psychologist, and so on. Each of us sees different kinds of patients, some of us do therapy, some us do primarily neuro assessment, some of us are doing shorter behavioral interventions, some are working intensely with SPMI locked units, etc. There is no real typical day that encompasses the broad scope of what we do according to some of our specific training.

 

[thoffen]

I think the diversity in either field's practice really limits a simple answer. But, most likely, a psychiatrist will work from a medical model and do things significantly related to medications and a clinical psychologist will be practicing psychotherapy or psychologic testing. A lot of the typical differences have more to do with the exposures and models we have in training rather than the boundaries between what each could be qualified to practice.